Workplace Report October 2002

Features: Health & Safety

Working time compensation

Last month an Employment Tribunal awarded compensation to three workers who refused to work up to 69 hours a week at a fish processing company.

Dave Springbett, regional organiser for the T&G genereal union which backed the three workers said, "The Victorian workhouse still exists in Plymouth, even in this day of supposed improved European employment rights. I believe Interfish Limited should be named and shamed as Plymouth's, and possibly the region's, worst employer."

After refusing to work excessive hours, the three workers were forced to change their shift and had their hourly rate cut. The company admitted it had paid workers less than the legal minimum for holiday pay over the last four years.